MURDER accused Scott Snowden vowed to take revenge after Thomas Sharkey snr tried to set him up in a drug deal, a court heard yesterday.

Joiner Colin Hughes, 49, told the High Court in Glasgow: “Scott said, ‘I’ll get that b*****d. I’ll pay him back for that’.”

The court heard that when dealers give samples of their drugs to other dealers to test, it is normal practice to hand over three or four bags so that if they are caught by police, they can claim it was just for personal use.

But Hughes said Snowden told him that in a drug deal in a car park in Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire, in 2010, Thomas snr gave him 10 small bags.

Hughes added: “He said if he got caught, he could have been done for supplying. Scott Snowden was angry because Tommy did that to him. He said there was a police van there but he managed to get rid of it all. He was very, very angry.”

Hughes told the court that before Thomas snr’s pub, the Mariners in Helensburgh, went on fire, Snowden told him: “The Scousers are going to wait till the furniture is in just before it opens and they’ll burn it down.”

Earlier, Hughes told the court he was at Rhu Marina when Snowden was raging about boat owner Scott Chalmers, who had shouted at him.

Hughes said Snowden got Mr Chalmers’s home address from the computer at the marina and said, ‘I’ll get Rab to burn him out’.”

The witness said Snowden then travelled to Liverpool in time to see Mr Chalmers’s house going on fire.

Hughes also said Snowden asked him to drive Robert Jennings to Alexandria, where Jennings went into a house and came back minutes later with a knife covered in blood.

Snowden, 37, and Jennings, 50, deny murdering Thomas snr, 55, his son Thomas jnr, 21, and daughter Bridget, eight, at their Helensburgh home on July 24, 2011.

Snowden denies setting fires at Kings Point, Shandon, on July 3, 2008, and at the Garth Inn, Helensburgh, on June 19, 2009.